Topics - Dionysius

Never mind that today's factory-produced starlets and mini-clones just don't have the practiced chops of the supergroups of yesteryear, pop in a new CD and you might notice that the quality of the music itself—maybe something as simple as a snare drum hit—just doesn't sound as crisp and as clear as you're used to. Why is that?

It's part of the music industry's quest to make music louder and louder, and it's been going on for decades, at least since the birth of the compact disc. Click the link for a nice little video, a mere 2 minutes long, which explains it in detail, with audio cues that you'll be able to hear in crisp detail.

The key to the problem is that, in making the soft parts of a track louder (in the process making the entire track loud), you lose detail in the song: The difference between what's supposed to be loud and what's supposed to be soft becomes less and less. The result is that, sure, the soft parts of a song are nice and loud, but big noises like drum beats become muffled and fuzzy. But consumers often subconsciously equate loudness with quality, and thus, record producers pump up the volume. Anything to make a buck.

The bigger problem is that this is all unnecessary. Stereo equipment is more powerful today than ever, and last time I checked, every piece of music hardware had a volume knob.

Don't take my word for it: Pop in the first CD you bought and play it at the same volume level as the most recent one you bought. You might be shocked by what you hear.

Notice how Karl Buechner doesn't directly dissassociates himself with this kind of behavior? On the contrary: he admits to having had friends who were like that. And does he condemn this kind of violence? No, he just says that kids should try to stay out of jail and that "it's not worth it" but he does not say he disapproves of the hatred behind such acts.

It's a fact: straight edgers commit hate-crimes. Leftist violence should be taken more seriously. This video proves that the argument that left-wing violence is a reaction to nazi-violence is a lie and that the left-wing movement hides racists in their own scenes.

25.04.2007Yesterday i (Protector) wrote an email to youtube in order to tell them to remove certain videos showing nazi-propaganda and using Summoning music for it. This finally brought me to the decision to recapitulate all the statements i know that show clearly that the music of summoning as well as any kind rock or metal music are in contradiction to such ideologies.

So for now and for the future. any person can use Summoning music for videos as long as they are not used for political propaganda and specially not for nazi-propaganda.

Here are the reasons why i never will accept such ideologies in connection to summoning.Political Statements

When exposed to the raw ferocity of metal and when the music is absorbed into the person an immense feeling of power and triumph can be felt. It is this that attracts many different people to metal. Whether they feel in it comfort and support or a motivation for great deeds. Due to this attraction and a sense of being part of it, many claim that they truly understand what gives metal its power. Most of the time they are humanists who say metal is for everybody, other times they have an extreme right-wing political agenda.

Because of the fantasy world that metal projects it is used as an outlet for many deep rooted fears and frustrations by a large variety of (future) social misfits. To each of these metal represents something different in a philosophical context. And they try to show that to the world by affiliating with bands by wearing T-shirts, mentioning them in discussions, and eventually trying to pass them off as "their" bands as if memorizing the lyrics to a certain song gives you the copyright of it. Not only are these people often hugely mistaken in their perception of the artists, they are largely also cripple-minded people in need of a crutch to build their persona on.

Due to the depressing reality that our polluting society enforces upon it's subjects there is a dire need for instant fantasy to escape through. We can see that in the structures of most of modern society's art forms: the classic heroes are all dead and replaced with stereotypes representing modern man. In the second half of the last century in most of the west the middle-class has increasingly absorbed both the elite and the working-class, eventually to leave only a gray mass led by a group of interest-holders masquerading behind the (im)popularity of politicians. By increasing the amount of luxury-products available for the common man they have made this gray mass believe that they are part of the elite. Most of today's popular music is just a manifestation of this consumerist lifestyle. Music is popularized not to serve as propaganda but to be a distraction, as a colorful fantasy for a dull and gray life. Extreme metal opposes this fantasy, but replaces it with another.

The ideology of metal has always been an elitist one. But just like the expanding middle-class are led to believe they are part of the elite, so has metal become a gray mass that continues to absorb both the greatest and the worst. Due to it's increase in popularity with a mainstream crowd, metal has adhered to it's audience not to fulfill artistic expectations but those of technological values and an emotional acceptance of all it's fans. The same two standards are used to measure the happiness of a modern life: technological progress and social acceptance. And those are the very two elements of society that metal originally opposed by exploring an unabashed return to the glory and harshness of the past.

The now popular classic metal albums still have their strength, but they are diluted by the interpretations of the crowd. Their purpose is not lost, but their meaning is lost in the translations of others. Even 98% of the great artists eventually become estranged of what once made them so great. During christmas time the album-sales go up, and with each generation that drops the uniform a new one arises to start wearing it. But in the meantime the effect it promised on society has become a recurring trend that only affects the sale of T-shirts and the coming and going of artists who once assured a revolution.

Metal offers a fantasy that can inspire the need for a different reality. As long as that fantasy remains only a fantasy it will bear no consequences and will only be the dark sided equivalent of what it pretends to oppose. Life belongs to those who live it. And whether the listener understands the music or not, intelligent musicians understand that once they release their music it's not entirely theirs anymore: it becomes part of the crowd. But what the majority of popular bands eventually descend into is becoming property of the crowd themselves.

I can't help but notice the comparisons between this article and metal.

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An extinct language (also called a dead language) is a language which no longer has any native speakers. Normally this occurs when a language undergoes language death while being directly replaced by a different one, for example, Coptic, which was replaced by Arabic, and many Native American languages, which were replaced by English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese.

Language extinction also occurs when a language undergoes a rapid evolution or assimilation until it eventually gives birth to an offspring, yet, dissimilar language (or family of languages). Such is the case with Latin; an extinct (dead) language but the parent of the modern Romance languages. Likewise Sanskrit is the parent of the modern Indo-Aryan languages and Old English is the parent of Modern English. There are apparently children using Sanskrit as a revived language in Mathoor village (India) [1].

In some cases, an extinct language remains in use for scientific, legal, or ecclesiastical functions. Sanskrit, Latin, Old Church Slavonic, Avestan, Coptic, Old Tibetan and Ge'ez are among the many extinct languages used as sacred languages.

A language that does have living native speakers is called a modern language. Ethnologue claims there are 6,912 living languages known. [2]

Hebrew is an example of a formerly extinct liturgical language that has been revived to become a living language. There have been other attempts at language revival (such as Manx and Cornish), but the success of these attempts has been subject to debate, as it is not clear they will ever become the common native language of a community of speakers.

"By making deranged counterpoint music which expresses the auto-ostracization and directionless existence of black metal, Ungod have won a place on the shelves and in the hearts of many metalheads as the "rainy day album.""

In an attempt to discover if there are any interesting black metal bands outside the usual circles one can find the black metal phenomenon has spread out to some of the most un-norwegian places. I had a look through the metal-arkikes and picked these bands, I didn't post them here to promote them but to start a discussion on how you look at these interpretations of black metal. For instance: do you think it's cool that these bands have emerged or do you think it's symbolic for how black metal has crossed it's limits? Also: do you think it could lead to noticable new forms of metal? Or what do you think about the political and cultural circumstances? All the bands have mp3's on their site, feel free to voice your opinion of those aswell if you wish. It's not my intention to start a thread filled with links though.